


The Confidant

by FallingFaintly



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:14:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingFaintly/pseuds/FallingFaintly
Summary: Who can you tell everything to?
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41





	The Confidant

“It’s alright for you. Heaviest thing you have to carry is me,” Strike said.

His prosthetic leg was propped up against the filing cabinet, a yard away from him. He’d taken it off after a day on his feet, his stump singing with pain, and the relief was immense. He sighed and fished out one of the foil takeaway trays from the thin white plastic carrier, flipping up the lid and forking a mouthful of chow mein straight into his gob.

He’d told Robin to go and get some kip as they’d parted at the door downstairs, and he was now ruminating on why he felt disappointed when she had nodded, stifling a yawn, and moved away towards the tube station after a few seconds hesitation.

He snapped open the top of his can and took a large mouthful, casting a glance back over to his leg, which leaned casually, the sock inside the shoe at the base crumpled like it had given up for the day.

“Which isn’t nothing, I ‘s’pose,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair and absently patting his belly.

The leg didn’t offer any conciliatory disagreement. Strike took another drink, letting out a large sigh after he swallowed.

“Oh, right. Like that, is it? At least I keep you employed. You’d be languishing in a cupboard if it wasn’t for me,” he said, in mock vociferousness. He chuckled to himself, eating some more chow mein.

His mind ambled slowly back to Robin, and he passed a few moments in quiet contemplation, replaying a few conversations in his head just for the hell of it. He sighed again.

“Oh, I dunno, mate. If you’re carrying me, you’re carrying her, given how much space she takes up in here,” he said into the silence, staring into the middle of the room, tapping the side of his head.

The leg let him continue.

“’Course, that’s not really a hardship,” he said, the Cornish vowels coming through very strongly. “It’s not the worst thing in the world thinking about her.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robin had almost made it to the top of the stairs, annoyed with herself for having to double back, but also not really that annoyed, because the light was still on in the office, and as tired as she was, she knew it wouldn’t hurt to speak to Strike briefly once more before heading home. She didn’t really want to examine why that was too closely, but there it was.

As she put her hand to the door at the top, with its corrugated glass panel, she heard the unmistakable sound of Strike’s rumbling boom, and he was clearly talking to someone. At this time of night? She let herself quietly in, and heard the end of the sentence, “…given how much space she takes up in here.”

She blinked in surprise. Who was he talking to? ‘In here?’ Was he talking _about_ her? Perhaps it was a phone call. She waited in the main office space. She told herself it was out of politeness, which was already a bit of a fib, and then she heard Strike say “’Course, that’s not really a hardship. It’s not the worst thing in the world thinking about her.”

She froze, holding herself stock still, trying to make sense of that sentence, tamping down a sudden and overwhelming need to let out a squeak. She couldn’t move, and her auditory acuity dialled up to maximum. There was a brief pause.

“I can definitely think of worse things to think about than Robin.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Strike drained the can, and pushed away the food, warming to his topic with the unresponsive leg. He leaned back in the chair once more and lit a cigarette.

“And she’s only very slight, and she smells nice, so you could say she actually makes your life better,” he continued. He took a long drag and continued without waiting for the leg to interject.

“I think we can both say she makes our lives better, if we’re honest.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to be honest, but the leg seemed predisposed to keep his secrets for now, still leaning nonchalantly against the cabinet.

“I think she might make everything better,” he said, a little wistfully, before snorting softly at his own ridiculousness. “But don’t you bloody well breathe a word of this,” he remonstrated, pointing the hand that held the cigarette towards the leg to emphasize the point. “Can’t have my partner knowing I spend my late nights thinking about how she makes everything better and she smells nice. She’ll only get ideas.”

He stopped, and his amusement at the game faded into something else as he began thinking about what ideas Robin would get if she knew any of this. The leg remined silent, as taciturn as Strike himself could be, when he wasn’t uncharacteristically indulging nonsense because he felt lonely and didn’t want to acknowledge why.

“I dunno why I bother talking to you, you grumpy sod, you never say anything useful. Come here”

He stubbed out the cigarette and decided it was time for bed, reaching for the leg to pull it back on for the climb upstairs.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robin was quickly aware she really shouldn’t be eavesdropping on this conversation. There was no reply to any of his statements that she could hear, so it was likely a phone call. Who was Strike talking to about her? It surely wasn’t Ilsa. Robin smelling nice and being slight wouldn’t be a factor in their friendship.

But there was something in the way he spoke that seemed to indicate he wasn’t actually expecting replies, and she couldn’t resist creeping ever so quietly towards the kitchenette and peering through the partition window to see. She bobbed her head up and took the briefest of glances before ducking back down, her hand flying to her mouth to cover a surprised giggle.

He wasn’t on the phone. He was on his own, talking to his leg. She squashed the laughter down, and then she heard him say she made everything better and returned to holding her breath. He followed it up with his comment about her getting ideas off the back of his affectionate comments, and she realized her heart was thrumming a double pace and ideas were certainly forming.

She could get up, and walk in there now, and see what happened. But she suddenly found herself terrified there would simply be an embarrassed silence greeting her, and she already felt guilty for intruding on something she was never meant to hear and didn’t clearly know how she felt about knowing. She heard him make a final complaint at the leg’s rudeness in not replying and begin to get himself up, and she decided to make a swift and silent exit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, Strike was already in the office when Robin arrived.

“Morning!” She said brightly, hanging up her coat and coming in to sit down.

“Morning,” he replied.

“You alright?” She asked, and he looked up to see what that question was about.

“I’m fine,” he said carefully.

“Good,” she answered brightly, a twinkle in her eye, and she got up again. “Tea?”

“Yeah,” he said, furrowing his brow slightly. He knew Robin well enough now to know when she was being playful. He wasn’t objecting, but he was curious.

She returned with two steaming mugs of dark amber tea and set one down in front of him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the handle and a mouthful of scalding liquid. “You got home alright, then?” He asked, thinking about how she generally looked so tidy and fresh however late her nights had been. And smelled nice. He didn’t realize he had smiled to himself until she said “What?”

“Nothing…” he trailed off, turning his attention back to what he’d been doing when she arrived.

“I, er, I didn’t get home straight away. Had to pop back here because I’d forgotten I left that number on Pat’s desk and I needed to make the call early, so I did it on the tube this morning,” she explained, drinking her tea; her tone casual.

Strike paused his reading but made no sign he wasn’t taking in any of the words on the page. After a brief second to compose himself, he looked up.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he said, and his brain was already scanning through what he could remember of his one-sided conversation with his mute leg. What had he said? What might she have overheard?

“Oh, I’m not sure you were down here, I thought you might have gone up to bed,” she said, and he was almost certain she was hiding the ghost of a smile with her mug.

He nodded slowly, still re-running what the leg knew but would never tell.

“I did think you might be in here, because the lights were still on, but I didn’t come in here anyway,” she continued lightly. She put the mug down, and they looked at one another, that smile ghosting around her lips quite obviously now. “Just in case someone was with you,” she finished, her eyes dancing.

She bloody heard everything, didn’t she? He winced inwardly. After what felt like a hideously long moment, Strike shook his head.

“No, I, er, went straight up,” he lied, and he knew full well she knew it was a lie. She seemed to enjoy a few more seconds of playful eye contact, before relenting. She rose from her seat again, and headed back out to Pat.

“Fair enough,” she said. “I need to speak to Pat about the rota for next week.”

She paused at the door and looked back at him.

“Of course, if you weren’t alone, I’d definitely keep quiet about it if you needed me to. Everyone needs a discreet friend,” she said, smiling, her eyebrow quirking up before she left.

Strike sat for a moment, slightly stunned by her comment, before letting out a disbelieving and amused snort. He drained his tea and reached down to pat his leg.

“Fat lot of good asking you to keep your gob shut now,” he said.

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt on the Denmark Street discord, requesting Cormoran talking to his leg and Robin overhearing, arising from a conversation on how much we enjoyed TV Strike making little asides to his leg.


End file.
